JAS Staples/Curry's: Appeal Won

mmaa

Hi everyone,

A couple of months ago, I parked at a Staples/Curry's car park and got a ticket from an operator called JAS. When I got home I did some research online and found this forum, with lots of details of how to appeal. I appealed the ticket and I've now been told I won the appeal.

To all the people who have posted information and advice on how to appeal against these ridiculous tickets, I want to say thank you. Before appealing, I read a few forums and it was a huge help. And to anyone who has received a ticket and is looking for advice as to what to do and has found this post, here is my advice.

Email the operator and say you've received a ticket and that it should be cancelled as it can in no fair way be seen as a genuine pre-estimate of loss. Do NOT say you were the driver. Don't tell any stories like you were only gone a few minutes, you had an emergency, you had a child who needed a bathroom, you were ill. All you need to say is what I just wrote above and give no details about yourself or what you did.

I then received a reply from "Adam" (a fool from JAS. Incidentally, I believe this name to be a pseudonym). He said it was a valid charge, etc. I then asked for the POPLA code to appeal. After some back-and-forth emails he finally rejected my appeal and gave the POPLA code.

On the forums I found a couple of templates about how to appeal. I pretty much copied this but added and took away what I felt to be right. I appealed on 4 grounds:


1. Neither the parking company (JAS Parking Solutions) nor its client has proved that they have planning consent to charge motorists for any alleged contravention.

2. The parking company has no contract with the landowner that permits them to levy charges on motorists up to pursuit of these charges through the courts.

3. The signage at the car park was not compliant with the British Parking Association standards and there was no valid contract between the parking company and the driver.

4. The amount demanded (£94) is not in any fair or reasonable way a genuine pre-estimate of loss.


When you appeal the onus is then on the operator to answer each point. Keep it all on them. Don't say anything about what happened, what you did, etc. I asked that emphasis be given to point 4, as this is the grounds on which appeals are won. Here is my paragraph:


The parking company submitted to me that the charge is a genuine pre-estimate of the losses incurred in managing the parking location, but I note they did not provide any cost breakdown. They just gave me generalities.
Every penny of the parking charge must be a genuine pre-estimate of loss in order for the charge to be enforceable. I require that the parking company submit a breakdown of how these costs are calculated. These costs must represent a loss resulting from the alleged breach at the time. In my appeal to JAS I explicitly stated that the charge of £94 can in no fair or reasonable way be a genuine pre-estimate of loss. The reply I received was extremely unsatisfactory, to say the least. There was no breakdown of costs. And if there were I would suspect there would be a lot of double-counting and inflationary, pie-in-the-sky accounting to seek to justify their exorbitant profit-driven charge.
I also note that the charges demanded by the operator as "genuine loss" are those allegedly incurred at the point of issuing the charge, and cannot include speculative future costs relating to internal appeal procedures or mounting a POPLA defence. Had no breach occurred the cost of parking enforcement (for example, erecting signage, wages, uniforms, office costs) would still have been the same, and therefore must not be included.
Also, as the claim is being made for estimated losses at the time of the alleged contravention, then any costs included by the Operator that relate to accumulated amounts after that date are obviously invalid. Should such cost heads be included in the claim, as well as any profit element, then I would hope that POPLA would reject the charge.
It would appear that these charges are punitive and clearly profit-driven. Therefore, they should not be allowed to be imposed by parking companies. It would seem that a charge of £94 for an alleged 20 minute stay is excessive. Therefore, I ask for a full breakdown of costs.


The reply from POPLA has been that my appeal is successful and that the charge should be cancelled. The reason: the operator has failed to produce sufficient evidence to show the charge is a genuine pre-estimate of loss. They have included lots of fixed costs, including the IT system of £33. And the adjudicator has said this is not right, as the IT system cannot need to be reinstalled for every case.

So, I've won. To anyone reading this, I hope it helps. Follow the advice on the forums (I spent a while googling "JAS Staples") and when you appeal remember to put all the onus on them. These operators are just out for a quick buck and if we all appealed then they would go out of business.

Good luck and thanks again to all who have posted advice.

ezerscrooge

Well done. You've used the forum resources superbly.

Feels good doesn't it.